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mlwinters · 05-26-2018, 11:04 PM

Time for another update and this one is right up my street, lighting

As pointed out in my first post, the lighting wasn't something I was happy with. I have finally ordered the replacement LED's for the cage lighting and have upgraded all three LED strips. Thanks to SKB_Hamsters, each LED strip now has warm white, red and one other colour. The LEDs are again in groups of three LED's connected in series. Each white LED group each has a 56ohm resistor, each red group and each other colour group both have 120ohm resistors. Each colour has a supply voltage of 10VDC and all LED groups in each strip share a common ground to reduce the amount of wiring thus failure points. The upgrade process itself took a couple of weeks due to this being the first proper time I've desoldered and soldered the 3528 surface mount LED's. Being so small and not having magnifying lens or microscope, it was quite tricky and time consuming. Each group is super glued into the strip and hot glue was used to act as a strain reliever, mainly for the centre strip which is fixed to the roof and therefore it would put stress on the solder joints when opening or closing the roof, the hot glue minimizes this stress, both outter strips have hot glue to minimized this stress during installation but serves no purpose now. Each strip was left in my living room for at least 2 days for the fumes of the super glue to disperse (cage is in bedroom). The trunking around each LED hole was also sanded to remove as much of the dried super glue on the exposed side as possible to minimize the chance of ickle one injesting it. Most of the LED's aren't accessable but they were still cleaned off anyway.

Each of the strips have a slightly different colour sequence and are as follows, starting from the back of the cage to the front:
Left side: White - Red - Other Colour - Red - Blank
Centre: White - Other Colour - Red - Other Colour - White
Right side: Blank - Red - Other Colour - Red - White
(Blank means there are no LED group)

All three colours are switched on/off automatically by the controller between the following times:
White: 10:00:00 - 16:59:59
Red: 17:00:00 - 23:59:59
Other Colour: 00:00:00 - 09:59:59 (but only if a certain condition is met)
Full details of the other colour will be released soon.
The lights are switch to within one second of these times (less if I really wanted the accuracy) and can easy be changed to what I want.

Each colour can of course be switched on/off manually if needed however, one can only switch colours. Each LED, group or strip cannot be switched individually. The power supply is able to power all three colours at the same time but there are two seperate safeguards in place to prevent this from happening. More details will be in future posts.

The switching itself is currently done as a snap change, in other words, the LED's are either on or off. This is the next this I need to work on as I am not happy with it as its, from an engineering viewpoint, ugly. The LED's are currently connected to a relay (a mechanical switch using an electro-magnet to move a magnetic switch plate), this is far from an ideal solution due serveral factors, an audible "click" when the switch plate moves, vibrations and power consumtion (each coil pulls around 50mA at 5V). The use of a 3 amp relay was always a temporary solution until I knew the power consumtion of the cage lights.
I have re-designed an upgraded switch board that use medium power transistors (electronic switches) for each of the lighting circuits. This will eliminate the audible click and vibrations. This upgrade will also reduce the power consumtion down to less than 1mA at 5V.
Doing this will also allow me to fix the snap change issue with the LED's so that they crossfade (colour X will slowly fade up while colour Y fades down). Ill go into more detail in a later post about this. I will be making and installing the upgraded switch board over the next couple of weeks.

Enough text, picture time:
white lighting upgrade forum.jpg
White Lights

red lighting upgrade forum.jpg
Red Lights
(my stills camera hates taking photos in red light, these are the best it could do)

The other colour is not shown as they serves a different purpose. As I've said, Ill post full details of this soon.

Sorry the photos are a little small, I didn't want to clog up the forum or mess up the layout.

I hope you like the upgraded cage lighting as much as I do (ignoring the lack of crossfading).
Morgan

05-26-2018, 11:04 PM
mlwinters Newborn Pup Join Date: Jul 2017 Location: Cornwall, UK Posts: 39	Re: My Medium Sized DIY Cage Time for another update and this one is right up my street, lighting As pointed out in my first post, the lighting wasn't something I was happy with. I have finally ordered the replacement LED's for the cage lighting and have upgraded all three LED strips. Thanks to SKB_Hamsters, each LED strip now has warm white, red and one other colour. The LEDs are again in groups of three LED's connected in series. Each white LED group each has a 56ohm resistor, each red group and each other colour group both have 120ohm resistors. Each colour has a supply voltage of 10VDC and all LED groups in each strip share a common ground to reduce the amount of wiring thus failure points. The upgrade process itself took a couple of weeks due to this being the first proper time I've desoldered and soldered the 3528 surface mount LED's. Being so small and not having magnifying lens or microscope, it was quite tricky and time consuming. Each group is super glued into the strip and hot glue was used to act as a strain reliever, mainly for the centre strip which is fixed to the roof and therefore it would put stress on the solder joints when opening or closing the roof, the hot glue minimizes this stress, both outter strips have hot glue to minimized this stress during installation but serves no purpose now. Each strip was left in my living room for at least 2 days for the fumes of the super glue to disperse (cage is in bedroom). The trunking around each LED hole was also sanded to remove as much of the dried super glue on the exposed side as possible to minimize the chance of ickle one injesting it. Most of the LED's aren't accessable but they were still cleaned off anyway. Each of the strips have a slightly different colour sequence and are as follows, starting from the back of the cage to the front: Left side: White - Red - Other Colour - Red - Blank Centre: White - Other Colour - Red - Other Colour - White Right side: Blank - Red - Other Colour - Red - White (Blank means there are no LED group) All three colours are switched on/off automatically by the controller between the following times: White: 10:00:00 - 16:59:59 Red: 17:00:00 - 23:59:59 Other Colour: 00:00:00 - 09:59:59 (but only if a certain condition is met) Full details of the other colour will be released soon. The lights are switch to within one second of these times (less if I really wanted the accuracy) and can easy be changed to what I want. Each colour can of course be switched on/off manually if needed however, one can only switch colours. Each LED, group or strip cannot be switched individually. The power supply is able to power all three colours at the same time but there are two seperate safeguards in place to prevent this from happening. More details will be in future posts. The switching itself is currently done as a snap change, in other words, the LED's are either on or off. This is the next this I need to work on as I am not happy with it as its, from an engineering viewpoint, ugly. The LED's are currently connected to a relay (a mechanical switch using an electro-magnet to move a magnetic switch plate), this is far from an ideal solution due serveral factors, an audible "click" when the switch plate moves, vibrations and power consumtion (each coil pulls around 50mA at 5V). The use of a 3 amp relay was always a temporary solution until I knew the power consumtion of the cage lights. I have re-designed an upgraded switch board that use medium power transistors (electronic switches) for each of the lighting circuits. This will eliminate the audible click and vibrations. This upgrade will also reduce the power consumtion down to less than 1mA at 5V. Doing this will also allow me to fix the snap change issue with the LED's so that they crossfade (colour X will slowly fade up while colour Y fades down). Ill go into more detail in a later post about this. I will be making and installing the upgraded switch board over the next couple of weeks. Enough text, picture time: white lighting upgrade forum.jpg White Lights red lighting upgrade forum.jpg Red Lights (my stills camera hates taking photos in red light, these are the best it could do) The other colour is not shown as they serves a different purpose. As I've said, Ill post full details of this soon. Sorry the photos are a little small, I didn't want to clog up the forum or mess up the layout. I hope you like the upgraded cage lighting as much as I do (ignoring the lack of crossfading). Morgan Last edited by mlwinters; 05-27-2018 at 10:32 AM.